The present invention relates to an arrangement for centering containers in bottle treatment machines, particularly for filling of bottles in filling machines.
Arrangements of this general type are known in the art. In the bottle-filling machines the bottles are engaged by an inlet star and moved into the region of rotation of filling valves. A known centering arrangement includes centering tulips arranged below the filling valves and movable in a vertical direction, and bottle-lifting organs which are guided in the region of the inlet and outlet stars along a curved guide located below the bottle movement plane, so that in an outlet region they are lowered and after taking over a bottle and passing the inlet star region they are again lifted. In the known filling machines, the planes of the supporting plates and of the bottle supply path of the inlet star associated with the filling machine path are located at the same height. The centering tulips arranged above the lifting organs or their supporting plates serve for the purposes of unobjectionably centering the bottles during the lifting under the filling valves and are located above the bottle mouths. This position is required in order to make possible a disturbance-free introduction of the bottles into the filling machine rotary path. This, however, is connected with the disadvantage that the bottles in the region of the contact point, that is in the region of the direct taking over, are not centered during a short time. This can lead to disturbances, particularly in high-output machines.
In view of these considerations, it has been proposed to lower the centering tulips relative to the incoming bottles by special curved paths which are provided on a stationary housing of the filling machine. These known features are, however, connected with considerable expense.